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Tuesday, 8 April 2014

WHO KILLED PROFESSOR IYAYI? By Emmanuel Onwubiko

There is a general climate of lawlessness, anarchy and
apprehension in Nigeria. These negative but frightening feelings among the
majority of Nigerians are occasioned by the seemingly unrelenting regime of
impunity and the apparent failure of law enforcement mechanisms.

This climate of impunity has continued with no immediate hope of
ending. The vicious cycle keep expanding by the day even as the release last
weekend of the report by the Federal Road safety commission (FRSC) into the
recent killing in a road accident of the renowned Nigerian scholar and
university teacher-Professor Festus Iyayi shows another level of conspiracy on
the part of some government institutions to perpetuate anarchy and lawlessness.

My first intellectual encounter with the late Professor Iyayi was
in my early senior high school in Kafanchan,/Kaduna State when I bought a
beautiful book he authored titled“Climate
of fear”.

I reminisced with profound nostalgia
how I devoured the contents of the fairly bulky novel in no
time and if my memory has not failed me, I think the erudite scholar was full
of pain in that prophetic book about the upsurge in violence which several
years later has become monstrous.

Sadly, Professor Iyayi was killed violently on his way to Kano
state to make peace and negotiate a truce between the then striking Nigerian
University teachers and the recalcitrant federal ministry of education. We can
not forget so soon that Nigerian public universities were left to close down
for half a year by the government officials and the ever demanding and
insatiable university teachers.

Iyayi was killed precisely in Lokoja, Kogi state as he drove
himself from Benin, Edo State and it was then speculated that the driver in the
Convoy of the Kogi State governor was responsible for his death due to reckless
driving.

Understandably, the Kogi State government reportedly denied
responsibility for this dastardly act of reckless driving which led to the
killing of this profoundly respected university teacher and Unionist.

But following intense pressure from the organized civil society
community the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) proceeded to probe the
circumstances surrounding the killing of Professor Iyayi and has reportedly
indicted both the Kogi State governor’s driver and a construction firm handling
a road project in Lokoja for the incident.

The official report into the accident in November
2013 was issued based on a freedom of information request sent to it by
the law firm of Femi Falana (SAN) who did it on the express legal briefing of
the national executives of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Falana’s letter to the commission was dated February 12th
2014 even as the commission obliged the request in a reply endorsed by Mr. Wole
Olaniran, an Assistant Corps Marshal, the legal Adviser of the FRSC.

The report pointedly blamed the driver in the Kogi State
governor’s Convoy who veered off his own lane which led to the
accident. Recall that both the governor and another top flight
official had had accidents on the same federal highway prior to this
incident making Nigerians to wonder why the drivers attached to the Kogi state
governor to be this reckless.

In a news report dated April 7th 2014, FRSC was quoted as
saying that the accident was caused by the failure of the driver of a black
Toyota Hilux pick-up Van in the governor’s convoy, carrying 7 policemen, to
move to his lane of travel despite the fact that the road had been confined to
a two-lane road way following the protracted construction work on the road.

Report said the FRSC said one Danladi Baba, the driver of the
Toyota Hilux pick-up, allegedly travelling “on a high but determined speed
South-bound of the road, deliberately failed to return to and stick to his lane
of travel.”

“Contributing to the injury severity was speed; the direction of
the impact and one vehicle number 1 (Toyota Hiace Bus) body reinforcement
material which pierced the heart area of the fatally injured (Iyayi)”.

The commission also found a construction firm handling the
Abuja/Lokoja road project guilty for failing to provide adequate guidance and
channelization.

FRSC by this hollow and substantially weak conclusion did not
recommend punitive measures for the alleged killers of Professor Iyayi because
even after finding out the real culprits, it went to the ridiculous limit of
preaching to the guilty parties without deploying or invoking its legal powers
to punish the offenders. Have FRSC officials become religious preachers?

By this show of shame, the Commission has promoted official
impunity which implied that the law is only meant to sanction the weak and the
poor who are in conflict with the law.

Federal Government must take measure to prosecute the guilty
parties in the killing of Professor Iyayi except Nigeria has officially become
a banana republic.

This tendency which contributes to general break down of law and
order must be reversed if we ever hope to salvage Nigeria from spiraling
violence and bloodshed occurring virtually in all segments of our Nigerian
society.

Enough of this official institutionalization of anarchy,
lawlessness and impunity.

HURIWA'S WORKING VISIT TO ICPC ON THE 27TH MARCH 2013

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS' ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA; HURIWA, ON DECEMBER 12TH 2012 VISITED THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY[NEMA] ALHAJI MOHAMMAD SANI-SIDI ON THE CELEBRATION OF WORLD HUMAN RIGHTS DAY TO CONFER ON HIM THE HUMAN RIGHTS PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012 BY THE ORGANIZATION. THE DG PROMISED TO TAKE DISASTER MANAGEMENT LESSONS TO ALL PARTS OF NIGERIA. HURIWA WAS LED BY ITS NATIONAL COORDINATOR COMRADE EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO.